Eyrie Vineyard Estate Pinot Gris Dundee Hills 2019

The Wine Enthusiast Top 100 Wines of the Year 2021 list was announced on Monday, November 22nd, 2021. Out of nearly 22,000 wines, The Eyrie Vineyards Estate Pinot Gris was named #4 Wine of the Year. 

David Lett became the first person to plant Pinot in the Willamette Valley in 1966. He planted both Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. He would open the first winery, naming it ‘The Eyrie Vineyards’ and the rest, as they say, is history. 

This is how the Wine Spectator summarized what Eyrie means to Oregon wine: “David Lett pioneered both Pinot noir and its white wine cousin, Pinot Gris, the two grapes that define Oregon wine today. But just as important, he established the very tone of Oregon winegrowing: artisanal, individualistic, even idiosyncratic… You can look at Oregon’s 300-plus wineries and 17,400 acres of vines and trace it to Lett. But he left more than that. He bequeathed a uniquely Oregon ‘wine genome,’ one that others now seek to copy.”